She said frankly, "In that case, I might as well be frank with you, so that you don't find any clues and go against me, ruining my plans."
Then she glanced outside the hall and whispered.
"We've been delayed for too long today. If I stay any longer, I'm afraid someone will find us here, and then we won't be able to explain ourselves. Please invite General Zhu to the palace tomorrow. I'll be waiting for you in the Imperial Garden."
Before leaving, she chuckled and warned him again.
"General Zhu, please keep this matter secret for now. Listen to my full disclosure tomorrow and then decide what to do. If you tell the emperor right away, I'll be fine. I can leave the same way I came. But your Daning Dynasty will be over. Your Daning destiny is coming to an end. Do you understand?"
After saying that, she quietly left the side hall.
He stood there in a daze, as if petrified.
Is the Daning Dynasty nearing its end? How could this happen?
He wanted to know the origins of the wandering ghost, and why the Daning Dynasty was doomed. So he suppressed his fear and confusion, and after half an hour, pretended to have just woken up and left the palace as if nothing had happened.
I tossed and turned all night and couldn't fall asleep.
The next day.
After leaving court, he immediately went to Taiji Hall to talk to the emperor about the people's livelihood in the border areas.
After talking with the emperor, when he was leaving, he saw Concubine Ning who had been waiting for a long time in the imperial garden.
She sent the palace servants farther away so that they could see the two of them doing nothing in the pavilion but could not hear them talking.
He sat opposite Concubine Ning and listened quietly to her story of origin and purpose of her coming to the Great Ning Dynasty.
"I come from a time and space thousands of years later. You can call me a time traveler."
"My purpose in coming to the Daning Dynasty is to change the fate of the Daning Dynasty, which will end in twenty-four years."
"You must be curious about why your country, Daning, was destroyed, right?"
"Thirteen years later, the Emperor's eldest and second princes will fight each other for the throne. The Crown Prince will eventually die from the Second Prince's poisoning, and the Second Prince will be imprisoned for life by the Emperor."
"Having lost his eldest son and then had a second son who turned out to be such an evil person, the current emperor was overwhelmed with grief and suffered physical damage. He passed away six months later."
"With the eldest and second oldest sons gone, the third prince, Feng Changrong, has inherited the throne."
"But he was born mediocre, easily influenced, and a romantic. He is truly unfit to be an emperor."
"He had a cousin whom he loved deeply. That cousin had a heart condition from birth, and would get tired after walking more than a few steps. She had been sentimental and insecure since childhood. He appointed her as queen and spent all day with her, not even attending court."
"Because my cousin is sentimental and insecure, once he's not with her, she gets sad, uneasy, and starts crying, which only makes her condition worse!"
"If he hadn't attended court, he could have appointed a few capable ministers to manage the country for him. But he was easily deceived and listened to his cousin, handing power over to his uncle."
"After all, he's not only his uncle, but also his father-in-law, right? He feels like he can trust his family."
"But he didn't know that his uncle had become arrogant after gaining his favor. He took advantage of his power to impose heavy taxes at home and arrogantly provoked wars abroad in order to expand the territory of Daning."
"It's a pity that I have ambitions but lack the strength to match them."
"After his uncle's reckless actions, he sent the generals from the imperial court to the border, where almost all of them died in battle, including you, General Zhu."
"You are indeed capable, but unfortunately someone in the court is holding you back. You are fighting the enemy fiercely at the border, but the court keeps seizing the food and clothing sent to the border."
"Winter is coming. Your soldiers are starving and underfed, while the enemy is strong and fat. The disparity in strength is too great. No matter how hard you try, you cannot turn the tide."
"You were out of ammunition and food, defending the city for half a month. Half of you starved to death, half died in battle, and in the end, not a single one of you survived."
"Most of your military commanders were killed by the Third Prince's uncle, and many of your civil officials were also killed by him."
"With his reckless behavior, the ministers would definitely report it to the Third Prince, but he intercepted the report before it even reached the Third Prince."
"So he framed and imprisoned those ministers one by one on trumped-up charges."
"A minister loyal to Daning was murdered."
"Those who were not so loyal completely surrendered to him and became his henchmen."
"A few years later, he had ravaged the Daning Dynasty to the point of starvation and death. Some people, unable to bear the consequences, rose up in rebellion."
"The people of all regions, already deeply disillusioned by the incompetent emperor and his treacherous ministers, responded immediately. Wherever the rebel army passed, the inhabitants of the city would surely kill the defenders and let them in..."
"So it only took them a year to reach the outside of the imperial city."
"It was only then that the Third Prince realized what his uncle and father-in-law had done, but it was too late to regret. Daning was finished."
"He, the king of a fallen nation, wept bitterly with his beloved queen. Before the rebel army could break into the palace, he drew his sword and committed suicide."
After listening to the words of this time traveler, he felt that all this was too ridiculous!
How could such a useless emperor appear in their Da Ning Dynasty?
He was so infatuated that he handed over the country to his father-in-law just to please the queen. Even the storybook didn't dare to write this!
He was sure that this time traveler must be lying, but she then told him some things that would happen in the next six months in the Daning Dynasty, allowing him to slowly compare them.
He decided not to expose her for the time being and wait and see if the things she said would really happen as she said in the "historical" records.
Before leaving, he asked the time traveler.
"You want to save Daning, so why don't you tell the emperor directly about this? He is the ruler of the country. As long as he believes you, he will stop the first and second princes from killing each other, and he will not allow the third prince to ascend the throne."
The time traveler laughed.
She asked, "Don't you know how suspicious your emperor is? Have you ever thought about how difficult it would be for me to gain the trust of such an emperor? If he knew I was a ghost that could possess other people, would he suspect that I could possess him as well? In order to avoid being possessed by me, would he do everything he could to get rid of me, a ghost?"
She teased him with a smile.
"You're not afraid of me now because I have nothing to do with you. But if I were your bedmate today, would you still be so calm in front of me? Would you be afraid that a wandering ghost like me would dig out your heart and eat your brains while you were asleep?"
He was silent. He couldn't refute.
When the emperor knew she could possess people, he might have executed her without even hearing her explanation. After all, anyone would be terrified if their partner suddenly became a wandering ghost.
Especially since she had just traveled through time and had no emotional basis with the emperor.
To show one's hand means to seek death.
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